Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) is a technology that dramatically increases the digital capacity of ordinary telephone lines into a home or office. The different versions of DSL include for example ADSL (Asymmetrical DSL), HDSL (High bit rate DSL) and VDSL (Very high bit rate DSL), which are commonly denoted as xDSL.
Now, not all subscribers may want to have xDSL, therefore in some subscriber line equipment, the total number of subscriber lines are higher than the number of xDSL modems. When a new subscriber order a xDSL subscription, then a manual installation procedure is required, wherein an unused xDSL modem is connected to the subscriber's line. This is a costly operation.
A way of reducing the manual intervention is to use a cross-connect in the form of a switch-matrix or similar. This is done in e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 5,905,781 wherein mechanical or electrical relays are used, WO 01/45431 wherein mechanical or solid-state relays are used, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,262,991 wherein switches are mentioned. The switches/relays are then digitally controlled to enable a subscriber to be connected to one of the xDSL modems.